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Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

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11–20 of 206 posts

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#11
post #4

"Why aren’t we doing more to eliminate contrails?" I'm just having a hard time groking that contrails are really that impacting. TFA just quotes a bunch of numbers, but does not actually discuss how the numbers were derived. Maybe I've just been around too many people into Chemtrails, but this just reads to me as an offshoot of that type of thinking.

It links to this post which has a little more technical explanation: https://notebook.contrails.org/comparing-contrails-and-co2/

And also this paper which is a very in-depth technical explanation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223102...

I understand why you're reminded of chemtrails, but it is not crazy or conspiratorial to look at these giant lines in the sky and think "those things must be doing something". You can't then make the leap to "it's intentional and it's a biological weapon to control my mind and I don't need any evidence to believe this", but you can take the next step of looking into decades of research on the topic and deciding if the conclusions make sense to you.

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#12
post #4

"Why aren’t we doing more to eliminate contrails?" I'm just having a hard time groking that contrails are really that impacting. TFA just quotes a bunch of numbers, but does not actually discuss how the numbers were derived. Maybe I've just been around too many people into Chemtrails, but this just reads to me as an offshoot of that type of thinking.

[deleted]

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#13
post #4

"Why aren’t we doing more to eliminate contrails?" I'm just having a hard time groking that contrails are really that impacting. TFA just quotes a bunch of numbers, but does not actually discuss how the numbers were derived. Maybe I've just been around too many people into Chemtrails, but this just reads to me as an offshoot of that type of thinking.

There's some anecdata from 9/11

https://globalnews.ca/news/2934513/empty-skies-after-911-set...

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#15
post #4

"Why aren’t we doing more to eliminate contrails?" I'm just having a hard time groking that contrails are really that impacting. TFA just quotes a bunch of numbers, but does not actually discuss how the numbers were derived. Maybe I've just been around too many people into Chemtrails, but this just reads to me as an offshoot of that type of thinking.

It links to this post which has a little more technical explanation: https://notebook.contrails.org/comparing-contrails-and-co2/ And also this paper which is a very in-depth technical explanation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223102... I understand why you're reminded of chemtrails, but it is not crazy or conspiratorial to look at these giant lines in the sky and think "those things must be d…

Where I'm from, contrails are so small and irrelevant compared to the giant cumulonimbus clouds that form in the high heat and humidity. It's like tears in the rain in comparison.

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#17
post #6

How much will it cost in fuel (additional miles) and time (flyers’ lives) to reroute?

> The proposed detours typically result in a 1% shift (and again, this is only for a small percentage of flights). That means increasing fuel use and flight time by around 1%. So if your flight is three hours long, it’s only adding an extra two minutes. For a 10-hour flight, six minutes. This seems socially acceptable to me; most people would barely notice.

Airlines will certainly notice a 1% fuel cost increase however. But, they'll just add it to ticket prices.

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#18
post #4

"Why aren’t we doing more to eliminate contrails?" I'm just having a hard time groking that contrails are really that impacting. TFA just quotes a bunch of numbers, but does not actually discuss how the numbers were derived. Maybe I've just been around too many people into Chemtrails, but this just reads to me as an offshoot of that type of thinking.

It links to this post which has a little more technical explanation: https://notebook.contrails.org/comparing-contrails-and-co2/ And also this paper which is a very in-depth technical explanation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223102... I understand why you're reminded of chemtrails, but it is not crazy or conspiratorial to look at these giant lines in the sky and think "those things must be d…

> not crazy or conspiratorial to look at these giant lines in the sky and think "those things must be doing something"

I think more accurately it's not crazy to think they might be doing something. I could equally be convinced if researchers crunched the numbers and concluded they might seem big but they're negligible on a global scale. In fact the same figure of "only 3%" of flights really have an effect" could easily have cut the other way.

A bit like how wind turbines look huge and numerous but are (as yet and for the foreseeable future) completely negligible on the scale of global wind power.

In fact plenty of times much closer to home, thinking "this very obvious thing must be having an effect" and failing to verify that it actually does has screwed me over repeatedly in everything from bug fixing to installing floorboards.

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#19
post #16

If the incoming radiation can pass through, why can't it pass through on the way out?

The radiation on the way in has a different frequency than on the way out. For example, there is UV included in sunlight. But black body heat at Earth's temperature radiates in infrared. Clouds are very opaque to infrared, and more (though not completely) transparent to UV.

Re: Eliminating contrails from flying could be cheap

#20
post #16

If the incoming radiation can pass through, why can't it pass through on the way out?

Because it comes in at a different frequency versus when it goes out. Light, including UV and visible light, hits the ground, then the ground gets warm and radiates in the IR, which can be blocked by clouds.
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